Newsletter 48 February 2012
We cordially invite you to join us for some of our forthcoming events:
Friday 2nd March
Golden Time Toys – from 3 to 7 pm Drop-in display and demonstration of educational games.
We have invited Golden Time Toys to bring some of their educational games and activities to St Peter’s Church, Marlborough. They have a wide range of games that have been selected to support the National Curriculum in Numeracy, Literacy, Science and History and which can help to develop important skills such as lateral thinking, creative and critical thinking, memory skills, sequencing etc. The company likes to demonstrate their games and this event will be useful for parents, grandparents, specialist teachers and schools.
Tuesday 22nd May
MDDA Spring Lecture at Marlborough College
In the Science Lecture Theatre from 7.30 to 9 pm
Myles Pilling, SEN ICT specialist from Wiltshire Council is going to give an interactive lecture – Information and Communication Technology to Aid the Dyslexic Learner which will include:
- How to maximise the benefits of existing software at home and in the classroom
- Applications available that may be of benefit and the pros and cons
Free to members £5 to non-members (to include a year’s subscription)
More details to follow
Saturday 26th May
Coffee Morning – Marlborough Town Hall 9.30 to 12.30
Join us for coffee, cakes and a raffle, find out what we do to help support dyslexics in the area and look at some of the resources that you can borrow.
Surgery Dates – Marlborough Library from 10 am to 12 pm (2nd Saturday each month)
10th March, 14th April, 12th May, 9th June, 14th July
A dyslexia specialist will be present who can offer advice on dyslexia matters and give help in selecting appropriate resources from our huge range of books, games and assessments.
Autumn Lecture and AGM
Thank you to everyone who attended our Autumn Lecture and AGM. Joanna Jefferies from ‘Teaching Reading Through Games (TRUGS) talked to us briefly about dyslexia in general and synthetic phonics before showing us her useful games. The feedback we have received included thanks from parents with dyslexic children who now realise that their child’s learning style is so different from their own and that a completely different approach to teaching them is the way forward. I hope you found the follow-up Newsletter 47, about synthetic phonics, helpful.
We are pleased to welcome Annabel McNally and Helen Hardman as new members to the committee. Annabel is going to help us with our website and Helen will be our Minutes Secretary.
If you are the parent/grandparent/carer of a dyslexic child and would like to talk to others who are in a similar situation, the MDDA is happy to put you in contact with each other. If you are a dyslexic adult we may be able to connect you with other dyslexics for mutual support. E-mail us through our website (see link below).
PETITION FOR MANDATORY TEACHER TRAINING
The MDDA is pleased to support the British Dyslexia Association’s e-petition to encourage the Government to make dyslexia training a mandatory part of teacher training courses. If you feel as strongly as we do about this please follow the links below and support the e-petition which proposes that, ‘Dyslexia training should be mandatory in Initial Teacher Training’.
The British Dyslexia Association proposes that Initial Teacher Training course providers should be required to deliver mandatory and consistent dyslexia awareness sessions. The mandatory minimum should be the existing Department of Education 2005 module; available to view at http://nso.archive.teachfind.com/node/175600 The BDA says ‘All teachers should be trained to understand dyslexia, its impact on learning and what constitutes dyslexia friendly practice. Teachers should be aware of when to signpost learners for assessment and when to provide appropriate intervention’.
The petition only runs for a year so every signature counts:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20674
BOOK REVIEW
The Fear of Maths: How to overcome it. Sum Hope 3 by Steve Chinn
Steve Chinn is a well-respected author of books to aid maths learning. This book aims to reconnect readers to the half-understood maths ideas which they first encountered in school but find it hard to recall. Steve Chinn regards maths as being based on a few concepts and ideas which all interlink. Once learnt, these links reduce the need to memorise too many facts and procedures. The nineteen chapters in Chinn’s book examine the possible causes of difficulties and review basic maths concepts before moving on to provide useful ideas and practical suggestions to link learning strategies. The book concludes with several case studies and a dyscalculia checklist and will be useful to parents, teachers and TAs to help pupils who struggle with maths. £10 from Souvenir Press Ltd 0207 580 9307
Interesting dyslexia-related websites –
http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/74/12/1603.full
Article entitled’ Developmental Dyslexia’ published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry in 2003. Includes research information about remediation.
www.dyslexia-adults.com/journal
Follow the links to Dyslexia College for useful information for dyslexics at college or university.
A useful set of online games to support learning – try the concentration games for improving visual memory and attention, for example.
Helpline number 0772 945 2143 and messages can be left 24 hours a day.